They left the base with the mark of an x upon the metal door. This was all they could do for now.

"Shit!" Tyler cursed once more, taking his frustrations out on a kitchen cupboard door and breaking it with his vicious kick.

"Oi, oi!" Harry called out to him. "Keep it down, unless you want us to be surrounded by wandering zombies by morning."

The squad had chosen an unoccupied bungalow not too far from the lost base. There were only three beds amongst the two bedrooms, but it was sufficient for their needs for that night. Tyler had been helping Harry within the kitchen, producing water to add to a large pot and kettle, while they heated these over a campfire stove. It had been one of their greatest of finds this day, they had been excited to take it back to show the base, hoping for a meal that was not tainted with wood ash or blackened on coal.

Harry was not much of a cook, but he'd helped his old mum peel vegetables most nights, hence why he was on cooking duty. She'd also become sick and by morning, when he had returned from his night shift as a security guard, she had already turned. It had been Dexter, who happened to be Harry's neighbour at that time, who had put her out of her misery. He'd sworn to follow him in thanks for his kindness, feeling that he would not have been able to end her existence himself. Paul could cook a little better than him, but they let him alone now, his closest friend had been on base.

Ren Zexian would be the first to admit that he had no skills in the kitchen, he hadn't needed to cook in so long and any time he felt that he wished to partake in the act of eating, he had visited restaurants.

"These undead are unlike what I have knowledge of," he mentioned aloud as he sat upon the cushioned seating in the reception space.

"How did you know?" Dexter asked him. "That they'd all turned?" He was, of course, referring to the people on their base.

Ren Zexian subconsciously lay his hand above his stomach chakra. "It seems that I can feel it."

"Is this some sort of new power?" Patrick asked, his eyes red rimmed. He had no relatives nor close friends on base, he had been staying out of his home town for work when people began to turn. The last message he had received from his sister was that she and her family had survived, but after that he had no news at all. By chance or luck, he had fallen into this squad, unable to sit tight and sit still upon the base. He had not awakened an ability and he'd not been envious before, but he could not help but feel if more of them had done so, that the base might not be lost now.

"One could call it a side effect," Ren Zexian replied honestly. His words did not fall well upon Tyler's ears, the man stormed into the room wielding a kitchen knife that sought blood. Dexter was swift to reach his side and Patrick was not too far behind him, helping to restrain the angry man.

"So you were bitten!" Tyler accused. "Was it your doing? Were they lost because of you?!"

Dexter slapped the back of his head with an open hand. "Do you hear what you are saying right now?! How the fuck could Ren have done anything to them? He was well over a couple of miles away when we found him!"

Tyler buried his face into his hands. "I know that, I know that! But why! Why the fuck did they all turn when this guy didn't?"

"How should I know?" Dexter replied, the bitterness in his tone evident. He was no less affected by their situation than Tyler and the others, but they couldn't lose their minds here, not if they wanted to survive.

"I trapped the foreign bodies within a second core," Ren Zexian informed them, causing them to all turn and look at him strangely.

"Core? You have a core like a zombie?" Patrick asked, slightly excitable. Did that mean that the literature was correct, that ability users would also develop cores and be able to absorb zombie cores?

Ren Zexian frowned slightly, but slowly nodded. Was this not common knowledge amongst cultivators? Then what did that say about these men who had awakened their spiritual roots? Where were their teachers? "It took years of cultivation to produce my golden core. The second core stole many, many more," he added the later words with a slight sigh of resignation.

"I'm confused right now," Patrick admitted. "Did you not absorb cores then, to get your own?"

"Such a thing!" The usually calm man became agitated before them. "To do such would to become a Cultivator of the devil's path! I am a righteous man! I learned cultivation techniques from my sect and later my master. I need not steal others hard work."

"Is taking from zombies really stealing?" Patrick's face scrunched up amidst his confusion.

"I think you are not on the same page," Dexter replied, tapping Patrick's shoulder comfortingly before guiding Tyler to a bedroom and urging him to rest. Though not before taking away the knife he still held.

*****

Harry poured the soup of boiled vegetables, seasoned with a stock cube into bowls and one mug as the occupants did not have a large porcelain set. There wasn't much flavour other than that of the stock, but it filled and warmed their empty bellies that evening.

Tyler managed to produce enough water for the men to drink a couple of mouthfuls each before claiming that he was all out of juice.

Ren Zexian glanced over the man's body, but could not sense his level of cultivation. Usually, that was the case if the person was stronger than the perceiver, but Ren Zexian doubted that this was the case. But there was one other possible explanation for it; the man had no cultivation at all! Usually, if this was so, the mortal would not be able to use any abilities his awakened spiritual roots deemed possible, but this was not his realm, not his world and he had begun to accept that his common sense did not fit here.

"May I check your pulse?" Ren Zexian asked the man, who immediately wore an expression of distrust and stepped back, holding his wrists close to his chest.

"Fuck off!" The man cursed him, using those strange words, before disappearing into one of the bedrooms.

"Sorry about that," Patrick apologised for his comrade, but Ren Zexian simply shook his head.

"It is of no matter," he replied. "He has the right to refuse my intentions. I am not his master and he is not my student."

"What did you want to do?" The other asked, curiously. Ren Zexian had come to recognise that the man known as Patrick expressed his emotions upon his face openly and honestly, he would not shy away from asking questions and looked at things, even in the face of horrors in a positive light. He reminded Ren Zexian of his former brother, not of blood but they shared the same Master. He had once hoped that man would have become his Dao companion, together in immortality, but instead he chose to rise to the heavens. He shook away the memory some 8,000 years old and focused on the man before him.

"To evaluate his strength," Ren Zexian replied. "I might be able to advise him on how to improve his cultivation and his abilities. I am well versed in many cultivation techniques."

The man.. Patrick, looked thoughtful and a smile curved his lips as he jumped to his feet. "I know, you should test Dexter!" He quickly made his way to the room with the large white tub for bathing and the strange seat, that Ren Zexian had learned was a fixed chamberpot that could empty waste away itself! Their leader had shut himself in that room a while ago, even though there was no water to bathe with...

"Hold your horses, Pat!" Dexter growled from beyond that door. "Give a man time to finish what he started!"

"Oops, sorry Dex," Patrick replied and returned to the receiving room appearing chided. "He'll... he'll be out in a minute or two."